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If you are using online marketing, you want to be found, right? Everyone is looking for the easy way to do that. How do you make sure that Google finds you and that you can be found. I see this all the time in my career industry e-lists and with other small business owners.
Everyone is looking for the magic SEO formula or optimization. There is validity in SEO optimization, but I think people put too much emphasis on hunting for a magic formula and don’t work hard enough on more basic steps that anyone can do without being an SEO wizard.
It comes down to everyone looking for the easy way to do things: Get great SEO, get rich quickly, and just make it easy.
The easy way to success is hard work!
I will tell you a little secret. Before January 2009, I had NO web presence. At that point, my Design Resumes business was 25 years old. When it started as a sideline business, I was a property manager. When an internal transfer to a new property in Illinois failed and my husband and I both lost our jobs, my mother-in-law’s suggested I start up the sideline resume business to put food on the table.
I became busy and added several non-profit contracts as another revenue stream. It took me years to realize that the additional revenue stream was taking all my energy and all my focus away from my own career industry business.
I finally set up Propelling You to Career Success in January 2009 on a static site using Dreamweaver with the help of a web designer. I had started a WordPress blog in October 2008 and had Kim Woodbridge move the two together in April 2009. In March of 2010, we moved the whole site off of Dreamweaver and onto Headway which opened the door to real traction.
All you want to do is attract new clients or customers, right?
Design Resumes is now attracting new clients who find the site and me (Julie Walraven) easily through Google. How?
Step 1: Comment on blogs
When I started exploring social media, I figured out the only way I would learn about this new process was to go figure out people who seemed to know what they were talking about and listen. I started reading blogs written by people like Jim Connolly, Danny Brown, and others who were in the space at the time. I also started commenting on their blogs. Amazingly, people responded to my comments and talked to me. This encouraged me to comment more on their blogs and find new ones to comment on. I don’t think I realized what would happen. But suddenly when I Googled my own name, I found that the number of pages I was on kept growing. Every comment was building my Google profile.
Step 2: Make your home your blog and encourage others to visit
As I commented, I linked back to my blog. I also commented on CommentLuv blogs and added CommentLuv to Propelling You to Career Success (Design Resumes’ blog). This blog will also be using CommentLuv and I’ve just learned there is a brand new version coming out soon. CommentLuv captures the titles of the posts from your commenters if they have their own blogs. It rewards them for coming to visit by inserting the titles and links back to their sites. Now it would be foolish to just make silly comments or try to fill them with links back to your site but if you leave thoughtful, intelligent comments, you will build community.
Step 3: Blog regularly
I said there was no easy button. You need to make your blog your home, own your own real estate, and yes, it should be part of your website not an outside site. Your blog must be integrated into your site. This is why Headway and other premium themes are so popular, they let you have a complete site all in one place. Once you do that, you need to write. No easy button, just write. We can talk about how to build content another day but for now, just write.
Let's explore how working with me could help you succeed! Call (715) 574-5263 or 
Enjoyed that. Thank you.
Wow! You are quick! Thanks for stopping by!
Finally someone cuts through some of the static out there! Thanks for 3 simple suggestions that can be added to as you go.
You are welcome, Linda! I have heard so many people thinking they just need to “stuff” all the potential SEO words into the site which often makes Google not like you at all. Or trick Google by hiding tons of words in the background. The misinformation abounds out there. Some of it was correct 10 years ago but most of it is not anymore.
Thank you, Julie, for these “first steps” to getting better traction online. As I continue building both my blogs I will indeed attempt to engage more with others doing the same thing.
[...] out there. It didn’t hurt that this blog was ready to go for higher volume when it came. The Google rankings on this blog have been growing for the past two years and my clients from throughout the United [...]
[...] and not let people know who you are. But for most people, if they are going through the trouble of commenting on blogs, their goal is to build traffic to somewhere, their own blog, LinkedIn, or some other web [...]
[...] You need to make your blog your home, own your own real estate, and yes, it should be part of your website not an outside site… More… [...]
[...] back to your main site. Not only that, but you aren’t impacting your own site’s Google Rankings by having your blog off on WordPress.com, Blogger, or [...]
[...] who need me can find me. A quick Google search for Julie Walraven will get you to my home base. They know what value I bring because they follow [...]
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